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Determining the List Price

Three strategies, the market conditions each one suits, and how the wrong choice costs you more than the right one earns.

4 min read · Guide
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Pricing is a strategic decision, not just an arithmetic one. The comparable sales tell us what the house is worth. What we put on the listing is a separate question about how we want the market to behave.

The three approaches

Price at market

List at roughly what the comparables support. Attracts serious buyers, tends to produce one or two solid offers rather than a crowd, and negotiates from a defensible position. The default in a balanced market, and almost always right for condominiums.

Price below market with an offer date

List deliberately under value, hold showings for a week, review offers on a set date. Works when there is genuine scarcity of comparable inventory and real buyer depth in your price band. When it works it produces a result above what an at-market listing would have.

The risk nobody mentions

If your offer night produces two offers instead of eight, you have publicly established that the market values your house below your own asking price, and you now have to either accept one of them or relist higher, which reads as desperation. This strategy is not free. It should only be used where the comparable evidence genuinely supports it.

Price above market

Occasionally justified for a genuinely unusual property with no real comparables. Much more often it's what happens when a seller's expectations and the evidence have parted company. The result is a listing that goes stale, then reduces, then sells for less than it would have at the right number in week one.

What actually drives the number

01

Sold comparables from the last 60–90 days, adjusted for lot, condition, and finish.

02

Active competition: what a buyer can see alongside yours this week.

03

Absorption rate: how fast your segment is clearing.

04

Your own timeline. A seller who must close by a date has a different optimal strategy from one who can wait.

The first two weeks

A listing gets its most attention in its first fourteen days, when it appears in every saved search as new. Getting the price wrong spends that window on the wrong audience, and you don't get it back.

Not sure where to start? Fifteen minutes on the phone will tell you.

Call or text (647) 448-4857

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